Help us test Reason 8.3!

Reason and Reason Essentials 8.3 will be released in a couple of weeks. You can help us by downloading it, and taking the new features out for a spin:

RV7000 mkIIExplore creative reverb sounds with RV7000 mkII! The new version of Reason’s cornerstone reverb effect turns RV7000 into a fully featured convolution reverb. Create your own otherworldly reverb effects by sampling or loading your own impulse responses. A selection of impulse responses will be made available later during the testing.

What to test:

Load samples in various ways, including drag and drop. You should be able to use any kind of sample.

Does everything sound OK?

Save and load RV7000 patches, combi patches and songs (note that 8.3 songs will not open in previous Reason versions!)

Known issues:

Preset 2 and 3 are currently empty. Check in again in later versions!

Browse where you areCall up Reason’s browser from where you work! The new browser introduced in Reason 8 offers a vastly improved workflow, but was previously only accessible from the main window. After feedback from users who use Reason with the rack in a detached window, you can now access the browser there as well.

What to test:

Use the browser extensively with a detached rack window.

Test browse focus together with detaching/attaching the rack.

Make browser settings, save and load songs. Are all settings restored as expected?

Quick ZoomMove quickly from birds-eye view to close-up. Hit the Z key to zoom to your selection and hit Z again to zoom back out. This is a real time saver when editing and arranging!

What to test:

Zoom to Selection button (below track list) + Z key.

This functions zooms in horizontally on the selection, or zooms out to "show all" (if nothing is selected or you have already zoomed in on the selection).

Set MIDI focus from the rackSome Reason users spend most of their creative work in the rack view. Now you can select what device receives your master MIDI controller input directly from the rack, without having to go to the sequencer.

What to test:

A selected device in the rack gets a tab with a button. Clicking this sets MKI (Master Keyboard Input) to this device. This is the same as clicking on the corresponding track in the track list.

If the device has no track, setting MKI in the rack will automatically create one.

Adjust static value in Arrange modeWhen you open an automation clip for editing in Arrange mode, the static value for the parameter is now available in the track list. This means you don't have to go to Edit mode to adjust this.

What to test:

Test automated parameters on native devices and REs

Do all text labels show properly?

Does the static value setting behave as expected?

Fixlist d88 -> d90 (and Essentials d53 -> d55):

Case 323827: RV7000 MKII: PreDelay changes the impulse response

Download and install

You will need a Reason or Reason Essentials 8 license to autorize the test builds. If you don't have one, you can still test in Demo Mode. The programs are fully functional, except you can't open songs, and you won't have access to your REs.

There is now both a optimized(non-logging) version and a logging version with debug checks enabled. Please test with the non-logging version, it should be as fast as the normal Reason/Essentials 8.2 release.

If you find any bugs/issues with the non-logging version, then send us an e-mail to report it. After that, please install and run the logging version and try to reproduce the same issue to get log files.

These builds will not affect your current Reason installation, and will update independently (they belong to another auto-update "channel"). They contain extra logging and fault-checking code, which makes them more CPU-heavy than the release version of Reason.

HEADS UP: Do not use these test builds on songs you care about, as saving the songs might make them impossible to open in your current Reason installation.

Documentation

Public testing

This testing is public. Please feel free to share any findings, pics or video. There is a forum to discuss the testing at Reasontalk.com.

Reporting bugs

If you find a bug, please send an email to [email protected], with a description of what the bug is, and a list of steps on how to reproduce it. For example:

Subject: Length parameter does not affect 24bit wav files 1 Load a 24bit wav file in RV7000 convolution mode (16bit works OK) 2 Tweak the Length parameterExpected result: Length is changed in both waveform and audioActual result: Waveform is changed, but no difference in the audio

If possible, attach a test song demonstrating the issue. This often is much easier than describing the setup in words.

Asserts

When the test builds find that Reason has done something bad, they trigger an error message called an assert. Report this as a bug. A folder with log files will be created on your desktop. Please zip this folder and attach it to your bug report.

Thank you!

Last but not least, a big thank you for helping us out and improving Reason!